Coffee, Hugulkultur (like) Bed

Still slowly harvesting coffee fruit. Pick, squeeze out the pip, soak in water to get rid of the pulp, dry in the sun and then pick off the paper shell to get at the green bean. Phew what a lot of work and because of the smallness of our beans there is still a little papery material adhering to the bean. Then a mind blowing thought. What about polishing the beans to rub off any residual material. Into the food processor at the lowest setting for a few minutes and then stand in the wind and empty from one container into another until all the debris blows away. Brilliant. Should have done it before.

You can still see some of the fine debris adhering to the sides
 

We have a hedge near the entrance to our yard which suffers badly from lack of moisture mainly due to two things. The lack of soil depth and the large spotted gum nearby. And no amount of watering seems to keep it from wilting for long.

Then a spark of an idea. We were both over the river cleaning up fallen poplars after the heavy winds. Larger logs with the tractor and smaller loaded into the RTV and trailer are carted to a cleared depression for stacking where the owner will at some time in the future burn. What a waste. Then I just happen to mention to Jean about Hugulkultur which I had heard on TSP and seen in a blog on Eight Acres Blog. Why not do something similar next to the hedge to help with moisture retention. And if it works we have endless supplies of material from across the river to use in other areas.

So we made a mini bed using some of the larger logs to contain a pile of the smaller sticks. Lacking soil (as did Farmer Liz) our solution was a whole lot of collected cow manure and then covered the entire construct with a thick layer of silage. We will in due course find out if size matters.

Does size matter?

The silage material we picked up for $30 a bale. It had been of poor quality and unsuitable for feed but when dried a little it is ideal for mulch.

Neatly sliced into segments with a chainsaw

 

I used the chainsaw to cut the silage into sections which are easily removed from the bale and transported on the wheelbarrow.

Nice thick biscuits transported easily

We also used some spare manure to feed one of the Lemon trees and covered it with silage mulch.

The small Lemon gets some attention

Sourdough Biscuits and other things

Being a public holiday meant the owners across the river were onsite and we had a day off.

Jean had put together a sourdough bread but it failed to rise which meant rather than feed it to the chooks I turned it into savoury biscuits. Plain, Fennel seed, Sesame seed and caraway.

Went down to the workshop yesterday to run the generator for 20 minutes - a monthly chore to ensure it is working. Rather than move it outside I started it in situ but it would only run for a minute and conk out. Today with more time it was dragged out into the light and the air filter checked for mud wasp nests, the fuel bowl drained and cleaned and a thorough overall check. It was then I noticed the fuel on/off switch was in the off position. It ran well after that.

Harvested some more coffee beans and at each opportunity spent a little time shelling the previously dried beans. This is a tedious job but I'm committed to making at least one batch of our own coffee. Finished the shelling while watching a Annabel Langbein DVD that evening.

As usual, it is Monday and a fast day all day from our morning tea/coffee until dinner time. That doesn't prevent us from doing a dozen laps in the pool, 30 minutes of Aquarobics and a HIT session.

With the moon still in the right place bottling continued with another 4 dozen bottles. This time it was 36 litres of Petit Verdot. We had a bottle with dinner in the evening (what diet?) and found it really very good as a varietal. It is normally blended with other varieties but we prefer the unique individual flavours. So we aren't connoisseurs.

The weather continues to be dry and we have started the watering program again with both pumps working on the dam. I never have a problem with them as I don't turn off the fuel.

Some weeks a go we were given a largish pen which had been used to house broody hens and thus get them out of the busy laying boxes. The mesh in parts was badly rusted and today we finished replacing all the damaged sections. It now just needs a little rust proof paint and will be ready for action.

Another good day at home, Saving Energy, Coffee, Cheese Making Community, Insurance

We are having visitors tomorrow for afternoon drinks. Sounds good? Yes and no. Time to get the place looking respectable. Lots of house cleaning and the lawns need doing. Still having visitors is a good incentive to have a general clean up around the place. Good to get it done very now and then.

Saving Energy
The electricity bill arrived yesterday. Another reduction in usage. This is the second bill in a row showing a reduction in usage prior to that it had shot up. An all time low compared to this time last year.

The cause of the original increase was the upright freezer. It wasn't that old and had a reasonable energy rating for an upright but we'd noticed it running fairly regularly.

A few years ago the operating temperature of all the fridges and freezers had been checked and adjusted. Then a meter was put on one in turn to measure consumption. All were fine.

As there was an opportunity to consolidate frozen storage about the time we received the big energy bill we defrosted each in turn and cleaned them finishing with the upright being turned off. Two months of no upright showed a huge reduction in electricity usage. This current bill reflects all three months of savings and as well our old analogue TV started to play up and was replaced with a more energy efficient digital reducing our usage a little more.

Only goes to show that major appliances need to be checked regularly for performance.

Coffee
Having harvested the best beans from the broken Coffee tree branches the pips were popped out and are soaking to get the flesh off. The earlier harvest had been cleaned and was sun dried and today over coffee the paper shell was removed and the beans are ready for roasting. After the next batch is done there will be enough to warrant a roasting session.

Soaking off the remaining pulp

Ready for roasting

Insurance
The updated insurance policy arrived this week. When the reminder came the other week we made a few changes to it via telephone. Both the Building and the Contents Basic excesses were increased. We looked at a couple of options before settling on the final amount which reflected our financial position and ability to cover the excesses as well as the risk factors. In the end we ended up with a reduction in premium of 30%.

Always worth reviewing not only the coverage amounts but the Basic Excess every year for all insurance policies. Such as house and vehicles.

Cheese Making Community
The cheese community continues to grow. When we commenced collecting milk from our current supplier we would often leave them a sample of the end products as they were made from their milk. Cheeses, Butter and Yogurt.

The daughter-in-law of the dairy farmer had sampled some of these and was motivated to complete a cheeses making course. And today she brought us a sample of her work in the form of a Camembert. Absolutely delicious! An excellent creamy wonderfully smelly cheese.

Many years ago when we first started making cheese we were lucky enough to meet Richard Thomas in Milawa an Australian cheese maker famous for developing so many different and well known cheeses. He encouraged us to keep on with the cheese making not only providing references to reading  material but also sending us off with rennet and starter culture. He had the view that the more people who became involved in home cheese making the more the market  for good cheeses would expand as tastes changes and expanded.